


One Step Ahead, One Step Behind Me

by nubianamy



Series: More Than They Say We Are [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: College, Commitment, Friendship, M/M, Season/Series 04, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 09:00:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8743654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nubianamy/pseuds/nubianamy
Summary: After Puck returns from LA and shows up at college to help Finn keep his grades up, he starts to wonder if he can keep it a secret.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Fuckurt Advent Week 2016. In order to set this at the beginning of December, I fudged the date.

 

Finn didn’t fail his test in teaching methods, but he didn’t exactly pass with flying colors either.  Puck made true on his promise to keep Finn honest, getting him up in the morning and pushing him out the door, grumbling, to go to breakfast. Usually Puck went back to bed himself after Finn left, tumbling into the top bunk where he crashed most nights; he’d never gotten in the habit of waking up early, even when he was in high school and he supposedly had to. 

Finn wasn’t much of a night owl, but Puck noticed he tended to be restless and fidgety after dinner.Trying to get him to settle down and study was almost pointless. If Puck challenged him to a game of ping-pong or air hockey before they hit the books, though, he was able to focus better.

It was just after Thanksgiving that Puck decided he needed to press his advantage. He dug through Finn’s clothes and found some running shorts and his tennis shoes. The next morning, he set his alarm forty-five minutes earlier than usual.

Finn responded with his usual bleary acquiescence when Puck got him out of bed, but when Puck handed him his running shorts, he paused, squinting at them.“What’s this?”

“We’re going jogging,” Puck replied.He gave his shoelaces a firm tug. “Put on a jock.”

“Jogging?” Finn gave him a curious look, but he pulled on the shorts and his own shoes and followed Puck down to the lobby and outside without complaint. The December morning air was chilly, but not enough to require a jacket. 

Puck paused to face him on the grass, moving automatically into the series of stretches they’d always done before football practice. “You, my friend, are stagnating.Too much partying and eating and egghead shit, not enough moving around.You need something to get you out of your head and back into your life.”

Finn mirrored Puck’s actions. “Yeah, okay. That makes sense.”

It felt kind of weird to have Finn listening to him give advice for a change, but it wasn’t weird enough for Puck to give up.He started a loping course for the courtyard across from the student union, and Finn followed him. 

This was familiar, running with Finn. They’d been doing that together since they were kids, first during soccer and softball, and later warming up for football practice. Puck reveled in the sensation of power and speed.It was just an illusion; he wasn’t actually all that fast compared to Finn or any of the other guys they’d played with, but it was nice to feel the burst of energy it gave him. When Finn passed him, grinning, he dug in, lengthening his stride to keep pace with him, just for a few more yards, before he let Finn go on without him. Maybe he’d been stagnating, too.

“Feels like old times,” said Finn when they paused at the corner, breathing hard. The little smile he gave Puck tore at him, but he ignored it. “You miss it?”

“Not even a little,” Puck promised. “Hey, all that stuff was great, but you’ve got to look ahead.”

Finn didn’t look convinced, but Puck wasn’t going to talk anymore. He hit Finn on the shoulder, jogging backward across the street. “Sprint, down to the corner.”

There wasn’t a penalty or a reward attached, _last one back’s a monkey’s ass_ or something like that. This wasn’t about winning or losing. The stakes were bigger than that.

Finn beat him, but Puck was close, matching him stride for stride. They staggered to a halt against the traffic sign, gasping, but they were both laughing.

“You’re the worst coach,” Finn said, leaning on his knees.

“Maybe. But you did it.”

“Yeah.” His smile was big now, broad and genuine and just for Puck. Puck was sure, as sure as he never would have said it to Finn, that seeing that smile was better than winning.

He hung back when they returned to the dorm room, fiddling with stuff like he was busy until Finn went into the bathroom first to shower. He had stuff to think about. This felt like it might be a turning point, something they could sustain through the holidays until the end of the semester. If the short-term goal was Finn passing all his classes, Puck would be on Finn’s academics like butter on popcorn, but the long-term goal was keeping Finn happy and healthy, long after school had ended. That was what he was really going for.

The bathroom was warm and steamy when Finn opened the door to let him in. Going second meant Puck didn’t have to worry about taking too long in the shower, where he could take care of the thing that was almost impossible to manage in a room with a single bunkbed.

But Finn was just standing beside the sink in a towel. He didn’t look like he was moving out of the bathroom. Puck stood there too, waiting, until finally he had to say, “You done in here?”

“I just,” said Finn, and then stopped. The mirror was too foggy for Puck to see his face from behind. He sounded like he was having trouble getting the words out.

“What?”

“These last couple weeks. Since you came. You made everything… so much better. Not just school. Everything.”

 _Leave it to Finn to get emotional when I really need to jerk off._ He patted him on the back twice. “Glad to do it.”

“I can tell. I can tell you really want me to succeed. You want me to be, like, all I can be. Way more than that military recruiter ever did. You think I can get through this semester? Keep my grades up?”

“Yeah,” Puck said. “Totally. You’ve got this.”

“Yeah.” Finn turned around, his eyes on the worn tile floor. “And then what? You think I could be a teacher?”

“Dude, you’d be a great teacher. Or a counselor, like Ms. P.”

“I don’t know. She told me I'd need a masters degree for that. It’d be a lot of work.”

“Hey, you’re up for it. It’s your job to go to class and learn the stuff; it’s _my_ job to figure out a way you can learn it best.”

“Yeah, about that. Like… who _does_ that?” He glanced up at Puck, looking predictably perplexed. “Who drops everything to help a guy who wasn’t even a very good friend to him for the last year?”

“Somebody who’s got the distance view,” said Puck. “Who’s got your best interests at heart. Dude, maybe I should be handling your financials too.”

Finn wasn’t paying attention to his banter. If he was going to be honest, Puck wasn’t either. He was watching Finn looking at him with very specific attention, and wondered if maybe he had something hanging out of his nose.

“That sounds like… kind of a long term thing.”

“Well, yeah.” Puck wrinkled his forehead, trying to suss what Finn was getting at. Then Finn reached out with one hand and grasped his.

“I think I always had some assumptions about the kind of person I was going to spend my life with,” he said. “It didn’t hit me until—well, maybe until about half an hour ago—that I’ve already spent most of it with you.”

Puck did his best, in the face of Finn’s words and Finn himself standing in a towel in front of him, not to gape or stammer. In the meantime, Finn’s little killer smile had returned, and now Puck’s defenses against it had dropped to nil.

“Yeah,” was all he could manage. He also didn’t let go of Finn’s hand.

Finn seemed to take more courage from this. He stepped in a little closer. Now their joined hands were swinging alarmingly near to Puck’s shorts. Puck tried to adjust his position, but Finn tugged on Puck’s hand so that they were face-to-face again.

“So what about you?”

“What about me what?”

“Well, I was thinking, I don’t know if you’d really be happy with helping me to succeed unless you could also work toward your own goals. Except…” Finn tilted his head. “Maybe you have been?”

The residual heat from Finn's shower was starting to get to him. He scratched his neck, trying not to squirm. “I’m taking a break from that. LA was a bust, so I’m lying low for a while. Plus the screenplay.”

“Yeah. You do a lot of stuff. I always admired that about you, you know, that you would just try something even if you’d never done it before. You’re fearless.”

“Not always,” Puck muttered. When Finn reached out with his _other_ hand and held both of his, he had to roll his eyes. “Dude, what—“

“Just tell me.” Finn didn’t look confused or hesitant anymore. He nodded at Puck, like he was prompting him. Waiting for something. Puck blew out a breath.

“I just thought, coming back here, there’s not a lot to do in Lima. This is the best thing right now.”

“This?” echoed Finn. He gripped Puck’s hands more tightly. “This is… the best thing?”

“Right now.”

“Okay. And… what’s next? For this? Like, after school? Assuming I get a job.”

“You will," said Puck with as much confidence as he could muster. "The teacher market’s up in the next five years, you’re pretty much guaranteed of a place no matter where you want to be. Like, if you don’t want to go the city route and move to Cinci or something, there’s tons of small towns nearby where you could start from scratch. Once you have a job, you can save up a down payment on a house.”

“Make a life,” murmured Finn. “You want to do that with me?”

“Well, you know…” He struggled for words that would be appropriate. “It doesn’t matter where I go.”

“That’s not true.” Finn looked so serious, Puck thought he might start laughing. “I need you with me.”

“Hey, you got me. Really. I’m not planning on taking off any time soon.”

“That’s kind of what I’m saying.”

“Yeah, what _are_ you saying?” Puck snapped, feeling his patience coming to an end. The room was starting to cool off, and he really wanted to be in that shower, with Finn on the other side of the door. “Because it’s starting to sound like you want some kind of promise that I’ll stick around.”

“Not because I’m worried about you taking off,” Finn said. “Because… because what you’re offering means something to me. I want you to know I’m not taking it for granted. Not taking _you_ for granted.”

It wasn’t until Finn had already dropped his hands and was making the move to hug him that Puck realized what he was doing. He took one step back as Finn took one step forward, but there really was nowhere else to go in the tiny bathroom except into the shower, and he wasn’t about to drag Finn in there with him. As soon as their skin touched, Puck blurted, “Dude, you’re practically _naked_.”

Finn laughed. “You think I care about that?”

“Maybe _I_ care!”

“Maybe you do?”

There was no way Finn couldn’t feel the chubby he was sporting. He stood there, rigid, in Finn’s arms, feeling the heat of his skin and his hairiness and his bigness, and willed himself not to push Finn away, praying he’d move, just _move._

“Do you?” Finn asked, very softly, right by his cheek.

“What are you doing?”

Finn shifted his arms down so they were clasped at the small of Puck’s back, moving back to look at him. “Do you care about this?”

Being this close to Finn’s face was almost more than he could handle, but there were a whole lot of things happening that he didn’t know how to handle, so he just stayed where he was. Even his dick, making regular little pulses against Finn’s hip, was only slightly more mortifying than this whole conversation.

“Finn,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, “you can’t tell me you’re into this.”

“Why not?”

The answer was hard to formulate, but he did his best. “Because. Because you’ve never thought about it before.”

“Who says I haven’t?” That little smile was fucking infuriating.

“Says you never said anything for eight years? Not even one _I had a fantasy about a guy,_ or _wow, his shoulders are hot,_ or—anything.”

“Dude, how many fantasies have you had that you never told me about?” Finn sounded amused. He was starting to piss him off. Puck squirmed in Finn’s embrace.

“Look, this is making me really uncomfortable.”

“You weren’t worried about making _me_ uncomfortable this morning when you got me up at o-dark-thirty to go running.” Finn wasn’t moving. “You knew it would be good for me. You pushed me, because it was good for me, and you knew it was. You knew I’d feel better afterward. I trusted you, and you were _right.”_

“Yeah,” he said uneasily. Finn sounded so ordinary, so regular, that for a second, he relaxed. And then Finn leaned his already-close face even closer, close enough for Puck to smell the toothpaste on his breath.

“So _trust me.”_

He was doing a familiar action, one Puck had made for years with girls but had never had the occasion to do with a guy: the wordless _I’m-going-to-kiss-you_ - _are-you-gonna-let-me_ negotiation, and it was simultaneously so weird and so appealing that he let out a whine of frustration. Finn chuckled.

“This isn’t funny,” Puck protested.

“It is _seriously_ funny,” said Finn. “I can’t even tell you how funny it is.”

“Yeah, it’s just a big joke to you, huh?” The words came out harsher than he had intended, and Finn’s smile vanished. “You’ll play fucking house with me until you find the next girl who’s hotter and softer and more politically correct than I’ll ever be, and that’ll be the end of—“

“No!” Finn’s hands moved to grip his shoulders. He gave him a little shake. “Puck. Do you know how long I told myself I wasn’t ever going to be happy? That I wasn’t going to get what other people had, because I didn’t deserve it? But you’re telling me that’s not true. You’re telling me I get to have this.”

“But you don’t _want_ this,” he shouted.

“Uh,” said Finn, and laughed. He ducked his head, and Puck watched the color rise in his face. “Not sure how you interpret that.”

Puck stared blankly at him for a few moments until he realized Finn was indicating the towel he was wearing around his waist. There was no question as to what was going on underneath it, but Puck still couldn’t stop staring.

“What the fuck, man?” he said weakly. Finn laughed again, trailing off into a sigh.

“Look, I’m—I’m messing this all up. I should have thought it through, but it was, like, when I realized what was going on, I didn’t want to put it off another minute.”

Very deliberately, he took his hands off Puck’s shoulders and stepped away from him. Puck watched him go, feeling a little bit relieved, but mostly disappointed.

“What _is_ going on?”

Finn gestured between them, a circle that encompassed them both. “It’s you and me, man. Us against the world. You’ve been trying to tell me that for years, and I kept trying to include somebody else in there. Rachel, mostly. And…” He shrugged. “I’m saying, now, I don’t think we need anybody else.”

While Finn waited, Puck sat down slowly on the edge of the toilet.

“Look,” he said, when the silence had gone on too long, “I’m—I really want to take a shower, and then…”

He didn’t know what _then_ would include, but Finn didn’t make him continue. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll be…” He gestured out the door, then went through it, closing it behind him.

Everything seemed to be moving slowly. Puck turned on the hot water, letting it run while he brushed his teeth. He stripped off his clothes and shaved his face and the sides of his head. Then he stepped into the shower and stood there under the water, wondering when things were going to start making sense again in his head.

Even his fantasies, once so predictable, had changed. Now they focused on the image of Finn wearing nothing but a towel and an apologetic smile. _Not sure how you interpret this, then._ Puck had no idea.

After the shower, he stared angrily at his smelly running clothes which he'd discarded onto the floor of the bathroom, and eventually gave up asking himself if he was going to bother to put them back on. Finn would have to deal with him in a towel.

But Finn was nowhere to be found. The room was empty. He could see snow falling outside the window. Puck spent about five minutes stomping around the room, muttering epithets about Finn, before deciding that wasn’t going to get him anywhere and got dressed.

Then he sent a text to Kurt. _Your brother called you yet?_

Kurt responded within moments. _As a matter of fact, he has._

_Did he tell you what it was about?_

_I’m not sure if I should be telling you._

Puck sighed. _If it’s because he's having a big gay freakout, it’s about me._

_We are not doing this in text. Hang on._

When his phone rang, Puck immediately demanded, “Where is he?”

_“I didn’t ask. Puck, what is going on? I didn’t even know you were back in Lima.”_

“Yeah, LA kind of sucked, but that’s not why I came back.” He paced the room. “This is a conversation I really never thought I’d have with you…”

_“Give me some credit. I think we can take it as read that you’ve been in love with Finn for longer than I’ve known him.”_

Kurt sounded so certain. “It’s not like that,” he said, but he knew it was pointless to argue given the facts.

_“So what is it like?”_

“He’s my best friend. Even after all this time. When I heard he was screwing things up, _again,_ I couldn’t let him do that. Okay, maybe I couldn’t make it in LA, but… I can do this.”

_“Do what, exactly?”_

“Help him. Make it easier for—to make it out of here.” _For us,_ he’d been about to say, but then he thought about Finn’s depiction of them _making a life together,_ and he felt even more stupid. “Look, I know he doesn’t really want that with me, but I thought, maybe if I could do this now, before he meets another eligible chick, we might salvage our friendship. That would be worth something.”

_“Puck, do you know what he said to me when he called?”_

“No?”

_“He said, and I quote, ‘What do you do when you realize you’ve been in love with your best friend for years?’”_

He stopped pacing. “He did?”

_“Yeah. And he was sure he’d screwed things up with you. Did he?”_

“No. It was… he didn’t.” He put a hand to his head. “I didn’t know it was even an option for Finn. I mean, I’m still not sure it is.”

_“Because he wasn’t attracted to me, he can’t be attracted to you? We look so similar, after all.”_

“Okay! Maybe he jerks off to thoughts of guys every night. What do I know?”

_“Is this really a reason to be angry?”_

Puck was grinding his teeth. He made himself stop. “I thought for sure I knew him, Kurt. I knew him better than anybody—only I guess I didn’t. And if I’m wrong about this, then…”

_“Then what else are you wrong about?”_

“Yeah.”

“ _Do you want to be wrong about this?”_

“What do you mean?”

_“I mean, if it turns out Finn is telling the truth, what do you want to have happen?”_

The words his lips were making vanished when he heard a noise, and looked up to see Finn standing in the doorway. He was covered with a dusting of snow.

 _“Puck?”_ said Kurt.

Finn held up his phone to show the words on the screen, a text from Kurt: _Puck said he wants you to come home._ His face was alight with hope. Puck bit his lip and nodded.

 _“He’s there, isn’t he?”_ Kurt sounded a little smug, but Puck figured he deserved it.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly into the phone. “He’s here. Thanks.”

_“You’re welcome. I’ll look forward to hearing the whole story at Christmas.”_

Puck was about to remind him he was Jewish, but Kurt had already hung up. He tossed the phone on the bed and waited while Finn closed the door.

“I thought maybe you’d taken off again.”

Finn paused in brushing the snow off his arms. “Really?”

“No,” he admitted after a minute. “I knew you weren’t gonna, this time.”

“You knew I was going to call Kurt, though.”

“Well.” He watched Finn take off his jacket. “He’s the authority on this stuff, right? If you were going to talk to anybody, it’d be him. But I guess he wasn’t surprised.”

The little smile didn’t catch Puck off guard this time, but that didn’t give it any less of an impact. “Kurt’s pretty perceptive. He also knows me. Almost as well as you do.”

“Thought I did.” But honestly, it felt like well-trodden ground by now. Puck didn’t need to blame Finn for not telling him the same shit he’d been keeping from him for years. He looked at him hard. “All this time, I thought the sex stuff was never going to happen for you and me. I accepted that. I told myself, _you can give him everything else, and that’s enough.”_

“But that’s not what you want,” said Finn. He sounded amazed. “Right?”

“Well…” He cleared his throat. “I’ve, you know. Never done any of it. So I don’t know for sure. But I’ve thought about it, a lot, and some of it…” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to want to do everything,” said Finn, but Puck shook his head again.

“That’s not it. I figure, sex is great, and, like, why wouldn’t I want to do it with you? Seems like a no-brainer. But I know it’s not really that simple.”

“No.” Finn’s voice was soft. “I think… I think it really is that simple.”

Puck snorted. “My dick thinks it’s that simple.”

Finn laughed. He was still standing in the middle of the room, like he didn’t know where he belonged. Puck told himself sternly: _you don’t have to be a wuss about this. This is Finn._ He held out a hand. After a moment, Finn took it, stepping a little closer. He looked a lot more wary than he had earlier that morning.

“You asked me,” said Puck. “All this stuff I was doing for you, if it was, like, a commitment? And I got mad, because—“ He took a long breath. “Because I don’t want to end up making promises to somebody who doesn’t want what I want. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do all this stuff anyway. You get it, free and clear. I’m not asking you for anything in return.”

Finn nodded. Puck could see him listening, and considering his words. He took a while, long enough for Puck to feel the anxiety creeping up his neck.

“What if I want to give it to you anyway?” asked Finn at last. “Not because I think you deserve it, even though you do. Because I want it, too.”

He closed his eyes a moment while the words sank in. “That’s fucking awesome. But you already said, you just realized this stuff, what, a couple hours ago? So, yeah, I’d rather you think about it for a while. Give it some time while we, uh.”

They were both grinning now, red-faced and— _god, why was this so fucking embarrassing? What are you waiting for?_ Puck shook himself briskly. Then he walked right up to Finn and, with no negotiation, planted a firm kiss right on his mouth. Finn made a noise that sounded a lot like a gasp, but he wasn’t coming up for air to protest, so Puck decided that was a win.

“As long as you want,” Finn said eventually, when they started using words again. “I’ll wait. But I need you to know, right here, right now… I’m in. If that means anything at all.”

“Fuck, man,” he whispered, and curved a hand around Finn’s neck to pull him closer. “It means _everything.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Don't wanna wait ’til tomorrow,  
> Why put it off another day?  
> One more walk through problems  
> Built up and stand in our way  
> One step ahead, one step behind me  
> Now you gotta run to get even  
> Make future plans, don't dream about yesterday, hey  
> C'mon, turn, turn this thing around
> 
> \- [Van Halen, “Right Now”](https://youtu.be/rMV-fenGP1g)


End file.
